Easter 2021

With mom out or town Dad came down to have Easter Lunch here with the kids and I.  Was a decent day, and I even got to sneak in a little nap.  Kids had a good time too

The Spread.  Had Bourbon Glaze on the ham.

Happy 75th Dad

Happy Birthday Dad!

 

Father's Day

This coming weekend is Father's Day.  Now I'm not really that into the whole day off thing and getting gifts.  I have all that I need and really with 3 kids there is no day off.  One of my favorite things to do is to watch the last round of the US Open, but I know if it's nice out that I'll be out and about, what to do yet, I'm not sure.  I think I'll suggest taking them to a beach or something.  


But as for my dad, it's been kind of fun the past few years and his gifts. In 2008 Mom, Mike and I planned on getting Dad tickets to go to Old Yankee Stadium.  Something Mom and I dreamed up.  You can read about it all here.  The next year got him a framed picture and Yankees blanket.  This year, not sure yet.  But its been fun.  I know all these gifts can't ever and will never make up for everything my dad (and mom) has done for me and my family.  Love them, wish we lived closer to them though an hour isn't bad.  


All those Saturday's going to Iowa City, hitting the Amana's for breakfast before and then the game are some of my favorite memories with dad.


Another is Christmas 1984 instead of a big wheel from Santa (that came a year later) I got a tractor.  Dad pushed me around the old house.


And like I said, I'm a dad now, 2 girls and 1 boy.  Can't believe it. Below are some of my favorite photos with my dad.


Happy Father's Day everyone!

   

Best and Worst of the Weekend

Best – Well most of the whole weekend.  Saturday the older kids and I did a tour of the city with our “Pirate Gold” and went and did a lot. 

We hit the Zoo, the Sculpture Garden, the Capital, the Botanical Center and then the new Ped Bridge by Wells Fargo arena.  We got some coins at the zoo and I called it our Pirate Gold to play a game with them and too keep Brayden interested and focused when he got a little crazy.  But we had a great time.

So we started out at the zoo, and wow are they changing some things up there.  The little walking area they had with the peacocks is all getting redone to an Australian Outback deal, and then the sea lions aquarium is a big mud pit, and it should look really good when it’s all done.  Will it be Omaha?  No…but it should be nice.  The kids and I went and hit up all the animals.  The kids favorite was the monkeys…I liked the otters but boy they stunk. Cool to see the giraffes out.

Then we started to trek downtown.  We drove around the sculpture park and Addyson noticed the new sculpture, so we got out and looked for some places to hide  our pirate gold.  The new sculpture looked pretty cool, and I still think the Letter Sculpture is pretty cool.  The kids just ran and that was cool too.

Next up we wanted to go get some cannons for our Pirate Gold, so we stopped up at the Capital.  It’s pretty cool what they’ve done all around up there.  It’s really person friendly to walk up too.  We stopped by the statue of Lincoln and Tad, and I asked Addy, who is that, her response “Is it God and Jesus?”  Kind of appropriate response for the weekend.  After that it was up to the cannons, or shooters and Brayden called them.  He loved them.  Addy wasn’t as impressed but we walked around and saw most of them.  There are still some monuments there we can go see.

Then we headed off to the botanical center.  They have a scavenger hunt for kids that you can do when you are there, and I told the kids when we completed it, it would lead us to the perfect spot to hide our pirate gold.  Addy and Bray looked all over and completed the tasks and enjoyed the trip this time more than the last time we were there. 

Finally we parked by the Chinese Culture Center and the ped bridge over the river.  I told the kids it was a Chinese Pirate ship and they wanted to go explore it.  We got there and I told the kids there were Pirate ghosts there that we had to keep away from our gold.  We got our trip there cut short due to potty breaks and ended up going home after our Pirate Car got blown up.  So it was a fun Saturday with the kids so we might have to recreate this some weekend.

Easter then was great!  The morning we did the egg hunt and kids mowed down too much candy.  Shawnna made a great lunch.  Ham, mashed potatoes with ham gravy, green bean casserole, cherry pie too.  Mom brought wedding potatoes, Sue brought cake and a relish tray.  The meal was great.  Then we had the kids do the Just Dance for kids on the Wii and they showed off their moves.  Then the real fun happened.  Wii Bowling!  Dad got into it.  He and Brendan were trash talking.  Brendan was rolling and then when dad got the hang of it, he was whipping up on people.  Dad had the belt, and then Shawnna beat him by a few pins.  Then Brendan wanted one more shot, Shawnna beat him by 90 pins.

Ended the weekend with Celebrity Apprentice.

WORST – So on Thursday I apparently misplaced or lost Shawnna’s wedding ring and tore apart the bed room and can’t find it, and it sucks.  One she wants it so she can wear it again since she couldn’t when she was pregnant, and it was the ring she wore when we got married so she feels bad that she doesn’t have it.  I’m going to tear the kids rooms apart tonight to try to find it.  Also LAUNDRY sucks.

Best and Worst of the Weekend - And the Oscar goes too

Best – Best of the weekend, hmm….other than relaxing at home and not having to go to the hospital and just sitting and playing games with the kids and being able to take a nap, that was my best.  Enjoyed the fact that my daughter got to go hang out with her cousin and aunt going to the Justin Bieber movie.  A big best that I didn’t have to go.  Ryleigh is doing great just need to get her to sleep during the night and get comfortable.

Worst – Worst is probably the fact that I think Brayden is getting sick again, another sinus infection.  I think we are going to have to go to an ENT and think of him getting tubes.  Sucks when the little guy gets sick.  Another worst was the weather.  Snow, again?  really?  I don’t mind the cold, and the frozen ground, but when it snows/melts/freezes/melts it gets muddy outside.  I don’t like that.  Dog brings in dirt than.  Final worst is I didn’t get out to 34’s in Ankeny to see the band Nice Bangs with some friends.  Would have liked to have got out but wasn’t able to with the new born and the wife on the c-section.

Oscar Thoughts –

• I want to know what James Franco was looking at all night, he seemed to be looking up to the right every time he was on TV as host, except when he was in a dress. 
• Toy Story 3 I thought was the BEST movie last year, I’m glad it got the best animated movie, but why wasn’t Mega Mind or Despicable Me not nominated either?
• I gotta see the Fighter and 127 hours!
• Social Network got screwed!   Why are we giving British crap Oscars?  This is the fricken USA! 

I said this on my facebook profile and will say it here again too.  THANK YOU MOM for everything you helped with this past week.  With the older kids in the morning and the night, with the laundry…it seemed the clothes that were worn one day were cleaned and folded by the next morning…with the suppers and with Ryleigh and everything I haven’t mentioned.  Truly thank you mom! 

To end today, Happy Birthday Dad!  Thank you also for everything you do that I don’t say thank you enough for.  And Happy 82^nd Hayden Fry!  Best days of my childhood were Saturdays in the fall going to Iowa games with my dad.  We’d leave about 730 for an 11 am start, hit up the Amana’s for breakfast, park down by the softball field and walk up to Kinnick and get in to watch the warm-ups and the band play.  After the game we’d drive home and listen to Zable and Soundoff, and check off our picks for the weekend to see how we did.  When we got home we’d grill up some steaks with mom, and watch the late game on ESPN in the basement.  Loved those days!  Hope to relive them with my son too!

My son….what can i say??

Ok, so right now my favorite song is Brad Paisley’s “Anything Like Me” It’s a song about him and his son. Go get it on iTunes it’s a good song! The last word spoken just makes me want to leave work every time I hear it and go get my son and get away from everything. Go to the Lake, throw rocks, play cars, or give ‘Noggin.

But where did the clumsiness come in? Please tell me it’s a 2-3 year old thing? Daycare must think he is beaten at home. When he was younger he would always hit his head, bump it on EVERYTHING possible. His 2 year pictures he has a nice quarter size bruise above his left eye. Along with a mark on his right cheek. That’s about how he looks all the time!

He’s a fricken walking talking breathing battle action He-Man. Really. I think he needs bubble wrap before he goes anywhere, though he’d still get hurt.

Ok, so with that back drop of info for you, let me fast forward you to Sunday. Or rewind. Or something.

He and his sister are playing in his room at his lil Lightning McQueen table. His cars are all over his room. I go sit on his bed to talk to them and he comes give me a hug and says “I love you Daddy” and goes back over to the table. One of his cars is a BIG car and he’s standing on it like it’s a roller skate. I look away for a second, and look back in time to see him go chin first into his table. Tears come. My first thought is he’s teeth went through his lip. He comes crying over to me, look in his mouth, and his teeth are fine, just a nice half to quarter inch cut/scratch parallel to his lip right above his chin. Get it all cleaned up and a Transformer band aid on it. All good.

Now last night. I got home from the gym and went downstairs to shower. I go into turn on the shower and hear the familiar pitter patter of footsteps coming down the wood stairs. Bray is saying “daddy, you down here?” I look back to talk to him and he is knelt over looking to see if anything is on the TV in the messy man cave I have down stairs. Less than a second later he was a bent a little bit too far over and proceeded to slide down the carpeted wood stairs.

Basically this is what it sounded like. Thud-thud-thud-whap-crash-plastic hitting hard wood(his batman happy meal toy)-thud-bump-flip-flop-crash-bump-crash. SHIT! ß (that was from me, not him)

I run out of the bathroom and get to him as his last roll down the bottom stair and he bumped his head on the last stair and floor. He isn’t crying yet but just laid there for a split second. Then looked at me and started screaming crying. I picked him up and held him. His mother came running down and was like what happened. I replayed the sounds basically as he kept crying. At first I thought something was wrong with his right arm/hand since his fingers were stuck in a GI Joe formation where they fingers weren’t moving. Asked him what hurt and he cryingly said “MY RAM HURTS!” His arm to translate those who don’t speak ‘Brady’.

After about a minute of cuddling and stuff I picked up Batman and gave it to him, he grabbed it with his opposite hand and I was thinking more like something was ok. But he got up and said he wanted all the lights on, and then went to turn all the lights on with his hurt arm. Seconds later the crying stopped and all was right in the world. Just a bruise on his thigh from that fall.

Seriously where’s the next injury gonna come from? And how much will it hurt? I usually just tell myself it’s his pre-training to become a bad ass linebacker. Especially since he has his sinister Joker laugh going usually a few minutes after he stops crying. Please tell me he is normal. Anyone out there?

I had my share of bumps and bruises so maybe Brayden is a lot like me and 30 years is just harder for me to remember.

New York Trip

This is a little late, but better late than never!!

So the trip has come and gone to New York and Yankee Stadium and it was a lot of fun. New York is nice to visit, but glad I'm back here in Iowa. Dad loved Yankee Stadium, Empire State Building and Mimi's (he has his own table there now). 52nd and 2nd if you’re ever in NYC. Glad the Yankees won for him; if they would have lost I think the trip would have had a different tone for dad. But instead we had a great night and time together the 3 of us.


Day 1-Wednesday—The Arrival

After waking up early in Marshalltown, we got to Cedar Rapids at 4ish at the airport. After Dad getting wanded because of the aluminum foil on his gum, we got up to our terminal and sat there for about 90 minutes. Going to get on our American Airlines flight, I was lucky and got chosen for a random check. So I got wanded, and bag unpacked and that was fun.....not. The flight to Chicago was good and quick. After a 2 hour lay over in Chicago we flew about 2 hours to NYC La Guardia. We were a lil longer because we circled waiting for the clearance to land. So we land, and head to our hotel, the Waldorf=Astoria. Very impressive from the outside and the lobby and main level floors. We get to our room and I've stayed in a lot better rooms. The Drake Hotel in Chicago is a lot better. Our room was just an old hotel with some noticeable things that could have been done up a little better. We head out of the hotel and grab a NYC hot dog from a vendor. Very good dog, spicy mustard, and head toward the Chrysler Building. Didn't go up top, just through. We head out to go to the Empire State Building. On the way we hit Grand Central Terminal. Pretty cool place, could see how one could get lost there if you don't know your way around. Was looking for Cyclops, Toad and Sabertooth! They weren't there. Darn. Next we hit the Heartland Brewery on the basement of the ESB. Great beer. Chatted with a guy from Seattle in town for the Yanks-Sox and then I was lucky to get my ear chatted off by some crazy lady who was a professor of psychiatry at Columbia. Her dead husband was famous, she was world famous, and her kids were world famous. And repeated all of her stories like 3 times. Meet a guy there who was asst manager from Chicago, and I had my Bears shirt and Cubs hat on, and he said "HEY, Cubs and Bears fan? I don't know if I should buy ya one or two beers." At the time he didn't buy us any, but we'll come back to that. We head up to the 86th floor of the ESB with some Aussie's who flew 36 hours to get to NYC, cool people. I agree with Dad, it's amazing what people did in the 1930's to make that building. Great views from there, you could see Shea Stadium, the Statue of Liberty, Central park, Ground Zero, Yankee Stadium and anything else pretty much. Stayed up there for a good hour probably then headed back down to the Heartland Brewery for supper. Walk into our booth and the ass't manager says "Hey I didn't get you the beers” I said "No, not yet...." He responded he'll get them. We order our drinks, they come and the waitress says, "They are on the house” We got about 20 bucks of drinks free because I'm a Bears/Cubs fan. Sweet! Good food, had some Ravioli. We head back to the hotel and drop dad off there about 8pm. Mike and I head towards time square. We see St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall, Saks 5th Ave, Tiffany & Co, and Trump Tower. Stop at Mickey Mantle's Sports Bar just south of Central Park. Drink there for about 2 hours. The bar tender Tammy wasn't too impressed with Iowa folk it seemed. Meet a guy from KC who was arrested at the US Open for scalping an extra ticket for under face value. Poor dude has a court date in October. The rest of the night, Mike and I wandered down to Times Square at night and it looks like it does on TV. I did think it would be bigger, but still cool. Stopped ant M&M world, saw a few bright lights from the ESPN Zone and the Broadway shows, and bought Shawnna a purse from a NYC street vendor for 30 bucks. Great deal! And did find a Ray's Pizza! Mystery meat pizza is gooooood! Hit the Waldorf after midnight and crashed to get ready for the game on Thursday.

Day 2-Thursday—Yankees vs. Red Sox
Woke up and then got ready to go and hit a little place called Cafe Ruffles. Breakfast for 3 cost us 60 bucks. Told ya you could go broke eating in this town. After wards we went to get on a train to head up to the Bronx. On the way down the subway we heard a "Go Hawks” Dad was wearing his Hawkeye hat. We get down waiting for a train and find out that the guy who said it was behind us, and from Fort Dodge. We go to NYC and meet a guy who is an hour from Des Moines there for the same reason we are. We ride the trains which weren't bad, just hot as a sauna down in the subway. Empty out at the Bronx and walk out to see the New Yankee Stadium first. It looks amazing. Gonna be a really nice building. So we go into to the house that Babe built. When dad walks out of the tunnel to see the green grass, it was almost like he saw a shrine. Walked right out to right field, and saw the famous white facade with the All-Star game logo. Got pictures of the whole thing. We walked around to left field to get to Monument Park but they closed it 45 mins before the first pitch, so we missed out on that. So that sucked. We made our way up to our seats. Prob about 8 rows from the top under the awning, in the shade and right on top of home plate. Great seats for 129 bucks a pop. The game went on. Dad started chit chatting with some guys from Uruguay who live in Jersey and buy and mostly sell alcohol. Got a free pop from them. The game went on; the Yanks were down 2-0 in the 7th and looked like the Yanks would get swept. In came Jason Giamibi to pinch hit. ARod had just popped out and having a terrible series. Giambi saw the 1st pitch and launched it some 420 feet over the center field wall. The place went nuts. 2-2. No action till the 9th. Yanks loaded the bases. Up came ARod. He K'd. The crowd boo's again for the 4th time. In comes Jonathan Papplebon to face the Giambino. First pitch, strike 1. 2nd pitch a ball. Next pitch Giambi shoots a liner into center field and THE YANKEES WIN! Could see tears in Dad's eyes. Glad he got to see the Yanks win especially over the hated Red Sox. After time in the subway back to midtown we hit a little place called Mimi's. Get the corner table in the outside of the restaurant and there and windows all around so we can see into the city. Great seats. Dad get's CC on the rocks and Mike and I drink beers. Had some great veal pizzaiola. Great dish. Also had my first cannoli. Great food. We drank there for a lil longer. I think there was about 100 bucks of alcohol on the bill. Afterwards we head up to a little Irish pub called Naills. The bartender was a witch. Wouldn't play any of my country music on the juke box. Sucked. But did meet some Chinese volleyball players. One was born in South America, works on German cars, and drinks Irish beer. How's that for a combo? Drank there for a while, then walked by a place called Fukumatsu. That's just funny. We were all pretty lit by the time we crashed. Dad even drunk dialed mom. Probably one of the best nights of my life.

Day 3-Friday—Wall Street/Statue of Liberty

So Friday was a trip to downtown Manhattan. The day started with lunch from a vendor on the street. A few bucks got us a drink, 3 donuts and 3 bananas. Wish we could get that deal here in Des Moines. We then hit the subway down to the financial district. When we arrived we wanted to go to ground zero. We saw where the twin towers once stood. We think there was a place to look into the fenced in area but we couldn’t find it and didn’t want to stray too much to try to find it. Was kind of surreal though. Then we walked down to Wall Street. I noticed the church “At the Wall” (from National Treasure!) It was there. No Nicolas Cage though. So that was cool. Dad & I got pictures underneath the Wall Street street sign. On the block was the Stock Exchange. Where few ruin the financial futures of all. All around were Army men with automatic weapons. A far cry from what Times Square was like. Really serious and quiet. Across from the Stock Exchange was the building were George Washington was sworn in as the 1^st President of the United States. Kind of cool. So we couldn’t get into the Stock Exchange, and we headed south. Saw the Gold Bull. Dad & I got a picture in front of the Bull, and then even got a shot of the back to make sure it was a Bull! It was. We ate lunch at Subway and then headed for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. It was like herding cattle there. It seemed like all the people getting on were just there for the Statue and then back again to NYC. We got a great shot of the Lady. Also Ellis Island. It was really cool. I wonder what it would have been like back 70-100 years ago. Coming home from a war or an immigrant seeing it, Americans now are lucky we don’t have to be in those shoes and take it for granted. After the ferry dad was getting tired and we subwayed it back up to the Waldorf. Mike and I headed back to Times Square area to find the Ed Sullivan Theater and Hello Deli. After a few turns we found it. Got a picture with Rupert G and my first souvenir for myself, a Hello Deli t-shirt. Mike and I then went to the NBC studios, saw where the Today Show is filmed and then bought a few more souvenirs for Shawnna & the kids. Back to the Waldorf dad and I relaxed a bit before supper and Mike went down to the Bull & Bear bar to see a MSNBC show talk about the markets. Dad and I met him outside and we headed back to Mimi’s. We walked by a grocery store that had all the fruit outside, just like you see on TV, really cool. The smell of the fruit could stop you in your tracks. Back at Mimi’s we walked in and the bartender remembered us. CC on the rocks for dad and beers for Mike & I. Mike got supper that night. Got the piano man to play another round of “New York, New York” before we left. And Dad got his free t-shirt. After supper dad wanted to head back to the Waldorf instead of going out. Mike and I headed back to Naills for a few drinks. College football was on! Mike and I drank there and talked to a few lawyers who wandered in from their office. One of them played football at SMU. He was no bigger than Kyle. Tells you why SMU is TERRIBLE! We drank till about 11 or so, one of the lawyers bought us a shot of the smoothest tequila I’ve ever had. We started to wander up to the Waldorf again, but I had to get one more slice of NYC pizza before the night was over. Dad was calling us to make sure we knew we had a flight at 5 am the next day. Got back and crashed.

Saturday—Back to Iowa

As soon as the wake up call happened we were up. 15 minutes later our stay at the Waldorf-Astoria was over. We walked out the main entrance, the door man had a cab for us waiting and we climbed in, and headed back to LaGuardia in the rain. We got there early enough to grab a juice and breakfast and Mike napped a bit, then we boarded the plain to Chicago. Seeming to be quicker than the flight to NYC we were in O’Hare for our layover there. We sat waiting for our jumper to Cedar Rapids for about an hour. I spent it walking around O’Hare and texting and looking for anything on the Iowa football game. Once boarded, Mike had to check his bag, and in less than an hour we were at Cedar Rapids. We got Mike’s bag, walked to his truck and had Gary & Ed on to listen to on our way back to Marshalltown. I got home to the kids and Shawnna to great big hugs. I got out their souvenirs and started to unpack and tell stories. Addy got a pink “Big Apple” shirt, Brady a Derek Jeter #2 t-shirt jersey, and Shawnna a pink “New York” shirt and her purse. I got my Hello Deli shirt and a lot of memories.

Fast Forward to Father’s Day 2009, there’s no way to top the gift for dad that we got him in 2008, but the 2009 gift had a hint of 2008 in it. I got dad a framed picture of him, Mike & me at Yankee Stadium and Shawnna made him a Yankee blanket. He liked both a lot.

The trip was a lot of fun, and I hope it’s not the last like that, had a great time with Mike & Dad in that setting. New York was a fun place to visit, but glad I live in Iowa. I still want to take Shawnna there sometime! But no shopping for her!!! :P

Mike, I and Dad at Yankee Stadium after the Yankees beat Boston.